Amazon offers authors all e-book proceeds amid Hachette dispute

By Jing Cao

Bloomberg News

Posted:
07/08/2014 04:08:10 PM PDT

Updated:
07/08/2014 04:41:15 PM PDT

FILE - In this May 29, 2014 file photo, visitors walk through the Hachette Book Group's exhibition at BookExpo America, the annual industry convention in New York. Stephen King, Nora Roberts and Robert Caro are among the hundreds of authors who have added their names to an online letter criticizing Amazon.com for restricting access to works published by Hachette Book Group. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
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Mark Lennihan
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Amazon is offering authors caught up in its dispute with Hachette Book Group all of the proceeds from the sale of any digital book, seeking to bypass the publisher and appeal directly to the writers.

Amazon sent a letter to writers including Douglas Preston, proposing to take them out of the middle of the spat by giving them all of any e-book revenue, Preston said in an interview. Preston, co-author of the Pendergast series of books, had led an effort to rally authors and readers to petition Amazon to end the dispute.

The world's largest online retailer blocked pre-orders for some of Hachette's books earlier this year, including "The Silkworm," a new novel by J.K. Rowling, writing under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Amazon and Hachette are each seeking a greater share of e-book income. While physical book sales in the U.S. are projected to fall to $19.5 billion this year from $26 billion in 2010, e-book revenue is anticipated to jump more than eightfold to $8.7 billion, according to Forrester Research. The growth is being spurred by the increasing consumer use of tablets and smartphones, through which people read e-books.

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"Hachette would never accept something like this," Preston said of Amazon's proposal. "Amazon paying us money directly for the sale of e-books would violate our contracts with our publisher. It seems like a negotiating ploy rather than a serious attempt to bring the two sides together."

Sophie Cottrell, a spokeswoman for Hachette, didn't respond to requests for comment. Sarah Gelman, a spokeswoman for Amazon, declined to comment.

Seattle-based Amazon dominates e-book sales with 60 percent of the market, according to Forrester. The company also helped pioneer the e-book market with the introduction of the Kindle e-reading device in 2007.

Amazon's offer to writers was reported Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal.